Chauvin's Trial

 In a free society people accused of crimes deserve a fair trial irrespective of whether they are guilty or innocent. I believe Derek Chauvin was guilty of at least manslaughter. I also believe he did not get a fair trial. For whatever reason, perhaps over worries about polls showing an unusually large percentage of black voters liking Trump, perhaps for some other purpose, leftists and their public relations people in the traditional media decided to make George Floyd BLM’s Horst Wessel.  His death was used as an excuse for rioting and looting, and as  the triggering event for a massive campaign pushing the false notion of “systemic racism” in America.

Chauvin’s  trial was held in Minneapolis where some of the worst riots had happened after Floyd’s death. It was commonly understood that an acquittal would lead to more riots and looting. Businesses around the city boarded up their widows and doors as a precaution against attacks by violent mobs. In such circumstances it would have been good to move the trial to another venue where jurors could have been selected from a pool of people with less reason to believe their lives and property would be in danger if they made an unpopular decision.  That was not done.

Failing that and given that the danger of riots was well known, and that people in the traditional media and politicians from the execrable Keith Ellison to the President of the United States were publicly demanding a verdict of guilty, and a member of the congress was in town inciting rioting, it surely would have been a good idea to sequester the jurors and isolate them from things going on outside the courtroom.  That was not done either.

I have no idea if these things will get Chauvin a new trial on appeal, but there are lawyers who think they could.  The leftists did things they did not need to do. I think Chauvin would have been convicted in a fair trial leaving no valid arguments for an appeal. There was no need to railroad him and to turn his case into a political show trial. The politicians and their supporters in the media went too far and may have created a backlash of sympathy for a person whose behavior deserved no sympathy. Even worse  there are people on the Trumpist side whose notions of proper political action are somewhat similar to those of BLM and Antifa. This may have given some of them a Horst Wessel of their own. You never want to manufacture martyrs for you enemies.  

 

Inflation Worries

 I have read several articles recently about ways for people to prepare for and cope with inflation. Some people are getting worried, and they have good reasons. The trillions of dollars manufactured by the government since the start of the epidemic will be spent somewhere. The prices of stocks, some types of real estate, and some other assets look at least a little inflated now. The prices of government bonds are very high, propped up by the fed and producing yields on the ten year bond well below the price inflation rate predicted by the spread between TIPS and ordinary treasuries. The people at the fed have announced they are fine with the CPI going above their former target of two percent per year.

Many writers recommend stocks as protection against inflation, pointing out that over long periods American stocks have produced returns several percentage points above the official rate of inflation. Owning stocks is a good idea, but one should not assume that stocks always will protect against inflation in the short or medium term. In the 1970s when the country had both high price inflation and a bad economy, stocks did not do well and were not good protection against inflation.

 Gold, silver, and some foreign currencies did much better then. It is not certain that they would do so in a future inflationary period. There were political changes in the 1970s and late 1960s involving the way national currencies were valued against each other and the collapse  of price controls on precious metals that boosted them. Still a one ounce gold piece at today’s prices will buy a lot more than it would a hundred years ago, and the value of a silver quarter is still good for a hamburger and a Coke at lots of places. 

The return on cash in the form of T bills and short term CDs has usually matched or come close to matching the rate of price inflation, but that is not true now, and the people at the fed plan to keep it not being true for a good while. Long term bonds can suffer doubly from inflation with the real value of their interest payments and payment at maturity declining over time and their prices declining as long term interest rates (which are harder for the fed to control) rise. TIPS are a partial exception – offering protection against losses due to price inflation as measured by the government though not to declining bond prices due to generally rising interest rates. This second risk is especially important for people investing in bond funds instead of owning bonds directly.

Then there is a simple, fairly surefire way to counter price inflation. One can buy durable things, including real estate, that one wants to have and use for years now and use them over time. Changes in the CPI have no effect on your price for something you have already bought. However, it can be hard to decide what durable things one can be sure of wanting to use over long periods and difficult to store some of them.

Planning for and overcoming inflation is a hard problem. Inflation is a wealth tax imposed by the government on assets in general. Even at two percent or less, it has its effect. At higher rates it can get really rough.

Of course predictions of coming increasing inflation -  just as predictions of coming recessions, booms, market crashes, and so on -  are often wrong, and there are other risks to deal with. As usual diversification is a good idea, but perhaps with more attention to inflation than has been needed in the last few decades.

The Friendly Skies

Officials at United Airlines have announced they will enforce a quota to make at least half of the five thousand pilots they plan to hire in the next few years be women or non-white men. Since this was a public announcement, one can assume it was done for reasons of marketing, but one has to wonder what sort of marketing. Different customers may want different things from an airline, but  it is likely that almost all of them would want the flights to be safe, and the flight crews to be competent. Indeed if asked, customers probably would say they would like an airline to have the most competent pilots it can get. 

Yet the people at United are saying explicitly that that is not what they plan to be providing. If a company is hiring 5000 people from a large pool of possible candidates who meet some set of minimum requirements and selects 2500 of them based on some characteristic not related to or corelated with competence, only by rare coincidence will all those 2500 people be among the 5000 most competent of the candidates. That is not an opinion but rather a simple mathematical fact. 

Probably as a result of criticism, the officials have said that every new pilot will have to meet the company’s standards, but that is nearly meaningless in this context. It in no way changes the fact that the selections will be made based on things other than maximum competence. (And in practice it is common for outfits with quotas to meet to adjust their standards to be able to meet them.)

There is nothing preventing women or non-white men from becoming pilots now. Many have. The opportunities are there for people who are good enough, and plenty of women and non-white men are.  It is interesting that the bosses at United do not seem to think so.  It is also interesting to wonder how customers will feel about knowing United’s pilots will be picked for some things other than being able to fly the plane well. They may feel they are not being treated in the friendliest of ways.

 

Gordon Liddy

 There were some things to like or respect about Gordon Liddy. They do not include many of his political ideas or his bragging, showing off,  and marketing himself too hard as tough guy. They surely do not include his attitude, behavior, and approach while working for officials in the Nixon administration. According to his autobiography he saw nothing wrong in the political sabotage and black bag operations he planned or directed including the break in at Watergate  and was ready to assassinate a columnist who was giving the administration trouble or a colleague who agreed to cooperate with prosecutors if he had been given orders to do so. If he ever changed his mind and decided any of that was wrong, I never heard about it. He was dangerously wrong, and the country does not need people like that in government. Still among the repulsive gang of scoundrels and weasels caught up in the Watergate affair, he stood out as at least a person with some integrity and toughness. He did what he did, thinking it was the right thing to do. He got caught and took his (excessive) punishment without either betraying his associates or making a craven false apology to try to get more lenient treatment. He seems to have been someone who, if he had your back, literally or figuratively, had it and would not run away when things got hot.  After serving his time he made a new career as an author and then as the host of an entertaining, amusing, and often funny and high-spirited talk radio show.  He also did some acting including a memorable bit as a villain on Miami Vice.

He was a man who made out all right after some rough setbacks, a felon who led a better life after serving his time. In public he came across as someone whom it might have been interesting to talk with, unlike, say, Dean, Magruder, or Colson.  At least he was colorful and probably would not have been boring.